Thank you for reading the Linux Advisory Watch Security Newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's vendor security bulletins and pointers on methods to improve the security posture of your open source system. Vulnerabilities affect nearly every vendor virtually every week, so be sure to read through to find the updates your distributor have made available.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

Securing a Linux Web Server - With the significant prevalence of Linux web servers globally, security is often touted as a strength of the platform for such a purpose. However, a Linux based web server is only as secure as its configuration and very often many are quite vulnerable to compromise. While specific configurations vary wildly due to environments or specific use, there are various general steps that can be taken to insure basic security considerations are in place.

Password guessing with Medusa 2.0 - Medusa was created by the fine folks at foofus.net, in fact the much awaited Medusa 2.0 update was released in February of 2010. For a complete change log please visit

(May 15)

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service, information leak or privilege escalation. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems: [More...]
(May 14)

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service, information leak or privilege escalation. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems: [More...]
(May 12)

Several issues have been discovered in the MySQL database server. The vulnerabilities are addressed by upgrading MySQL to a new upstream version, 5.5.31, which includes additional changes, such as performance improvements and corrections for data loss defects. [More...]
(May 12)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Xen hypervisor. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems: [More...]
Mandriva: 2013:165: firefox (May 15)

Multiple security issues was identified and fixed in mozilla firefox: Mozilla developers identified and fixed several memory safety bugs in the browser engine used in Firefox and other Mozilla-based products. Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption under [More...]
Mandriva: 2013:164: mesa (May 13)

Updated mesa packages fix security vulnerability: It was discovered that Mesa incorrectly handled certain arrays. An attacker could use this issue to cause Mesa to crash, resulting in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code (CVE-2012-5129). [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0832-01: kernel: Important Advisory (May 17)

Updated kernel packages that fix one security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 Extended Update Support. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0830-01: kernel: Important Advisory (May 16)

Updated kernel packages that fix one security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0831-01: libvirt: Moderate Advisory (May 16)

Updated libvirt packages that fix one security issue and two bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0827-01: openswan: Important Advisory (May 15)

Updated openswan packages that fix one security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0826-01: acroread: Critical Advisory (May 15)

Updated acroread packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 Supplementary. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having critical [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0825-01: flash-plugin: Critical Advisory (May 15)

An updated Adobe Flash Player package that fixes multiple security issues is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 Supplementary. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having critical [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0823-01: java-1.6.0-ibm: Critical Advisory (May 14)

Updated java-1.6.0-ibm packages that fix several security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 Supplementary. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having critical [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0821-01: thunderbird: Important Advisory (May 14)

An updated thunderbird package that fixes several security issues is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0820-01: firefox: Critical Advisory (May 14)

Updated firefox packages that fix several security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having critical [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0822-01: java-1.7.0-ibm: Critical Advisory (May 14)

Updated java-1.7.0-ibm packages that fix several security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 Supplementary. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having critical [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0815-01: httpd: Moderate Advisory (May 13)

Updated httpd packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0807-01: hypervkvpd: Low Advisory (May 9)

An updated hypervkvpd package that fixes one security issue and one bug is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:0806-01: openstack-keystone: Low Advisory (May 9)

Updated openstack-keystone packages that fix one security issue and various bugs are now available for Red Hat OpenStack Folsom. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low [More...]
(May 16)

New ruby packages are available for Slackware 13.1, 13.37, 14.0, and -current to fix a security issue. [More Info...]
(May 16)

New mozilla-thunderbird packages are available for Slackware 13.37, 14.0, and -current to fix security issues. [More Info...]
(May 16)

New mozilla-firefox packages are available for Slackware 13.37, 14.0, and -current to fix security issues. [More Info...]
Ubuntu: 1831-1: OpenStack Nova vulnerability (May 16)

Nova could be made to crash the system if instances used a speciallycrafted image.
Ubuntu: 1830-1: OpenStack Keystone vulnerability (May 16)

Keystone would allow unintended access over the network.
Ubuntu: 1829-1: Linux kernel (EC2) vulnerabilities (May 16)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1828-1: Linux kernel (Quantal HWE) vulnerability (May 15)

The system could be made to run programs as an administrator.
Ubuntu: 1827-1: Linux kernel vulnerability (May 15)

The system could be made to run programs as an administrator.
Ubuntu: 1826-1: Linux kernel vulnerability (May 15)

The system could be made to run programs as an administrator.
Ubuntu: 1825-1: Linux kernel vulnerability (May 15)

The system could be made to run programs as an administrator.
Ubuntu: 1824-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (May 15)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1823-1: Thunderbird vulnerabilities (May 14)

Several security issues were fixed in Thunderbird.
Ubuntu: 1822-1: Firefox vulnerabilities (May 14)

Firefox could be made to crash or run programs as your login if itopened a malicious website.
Ubuntu: 1821-1: telepathy-idle vulnerability (May 9)

telepathy-idle could be made to expose sensitive information over thenetwork.